


Five Hours

by respoftw



Series: Tumblr Prompts - McShep edition [13]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Captivity, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Recovery, angst like whoa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t even enough time to watch all three Back to The Future movies back to back but somehow, it had been enough time to break him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Hours

**Author's Note:**

> This is for @dayzor on tumblr who prompted:  
> Recently went through all your McShep tumblr posts on AO3 and saw you're still taking prompts.. I'd love to see sefic with Rodney post-capture by someone/anyone, with Sheppard not being aware of the details and thinking Rodney ' s PTSD-like reactions are just over reactions. Cue major guilt when he gets details and much making it up?

They had only had Rodney for five hours.  

Three hundred minutes.  

Eighteen thousand seconds.  It wasn’t even enough time to watch all three Back to The Future movies back to back but somehow, it had been enough time to break him.

John had been so relieved to find Rodney without a scratch on him - the happiness of things finally working out easily for a change making him feel like he was flying - that it had taken the best part of a day for him to notice. Or, more accurately, for him to be told.

He had left Rodney in the capable hands of Carson while he gave his report to Elizabeth.  A report that contained a lot of easy grins and cliche statements like “it was a walk in the park” and “as easy as taking candy from a baby.”  Really, he should have known that it was too good to be true.

“What do you mean he’s not OK?  He was perfectly fine last night, there isn’t a goddamn mark on him.”

Carson looked pained as John glared at him.  “Physically, he’s fine, aye,” Carson said, “but I’m worried about mental trauma.  He’s not himself, Colonel.  He’s not said a word that wasn’t in direct answer to a question since we brought him in. I don’t need to tell you that that’s not like Rodney.”

Elizabeth looked concerned and John had to admit that it didn’t sound right but… “Come on, Carson, he was held prisoner for five hours.  How bad could it have been?”

“John,” Elizabeth cautioned, “I would think that with your background in military you would know full well just how bad it could have gotten in only five hours.”

She was right, of course.  John knew only too well how many awful things could have happened in five hours - he’d spent every one of those eighteen thousand seconds trying not to think about them happening to Rodney - but he also knew that Rodney had looked fine.  Pale and a little shocked to see them, but  _ fine. _

“Perhaps, although he was not  _ physically _ harmed, Rodney was hurt in some other way,” Teyla suggested.  “Is it not possible that Rodney may have been hurt psychologically or emotionally?”

John’s shake of the head was echoed by Ronon.  “McKay’s stronger than that,” Ronon said when Elizabeth looked at him questioningly.  “It would take more than five hours to break him.”

Elizabeth looked unconvinced but John knew that Ronon was right.  McKay may act the coward but anyone who had spent any amount of time with him knew that his core was made of steel.

“Well, I don’t know what to suggest then,” Carson sighed.  “It’s not just that he won’t speak,  he wouldn’t  _ eat  _ this morning Elizabeth.  Not until one of the nurses told him he could.  Something’s not right.”

Elizabeth looked between a concerned Carson and an unconvinced John.  “Keep an eye on him,” she said, “ _ all of you _ .  I know you think Rodney is stronger than he thinks but  _ he _ might not know that.  Just, be aware.”

* * *

It was kind of hard for John to keep an eye on Rodney when the man in question seemed to have taken to locking himself in his room.  Even Radek claimed to see neither hide nor hair of him since their fleetingly triumphant return from PX7-RTZ which was when John started to get really frustrated.

A Rodney who locked himself away from the rest of Atlantis was one thing, but a Rodney who didn’t even bother to show up in the labs was another.  Nothing had moved Rodney from his self-enforced solitude - not Teyla’s patient pleas through the closed door of his quarters, not Ronon’s many visits informing him of that night’s menu, so when John almost stepped in the untouched meatloaf and mashed potatoes that remained outside Rodney’s room, twelve hours after Teyla had left it there, John decided he was done.

Abusing his ATA gene to override security protocols and privacy settings wasn’t something that John did often but he didn’t feel guilty about using it for this.  

Kicking the congealing tray of food out of his way, John forced his way past the barriers Rodney had set up and into his room.

“McKay,” he yelled.  “Enough is e-damn-nough.  You need to - - “

John broke off as he took in the state of Rodney’s room.  

Power bars littered what little he could see of the floor.  The floor to ceiling window, narrow as it was, was covered with the sheet from Rodney’s bed - silver duct tape securing it to the wall and making the whole thing as light tight as it could be, the darkness of the room oppressive and cloying.  The sheets hadn’t been replaced with anything - Rodney’s expensive, prescription mattress left bare and forlorn looking.  Like the meal outside, it looked untouched.

John’s eyes missed Rodney on the first astonished sweep, only recognising the lump of clothes in the corner as human on the second glance around.

Rodney was aware at least, staring at John with a wary look on his face, his body folded impossibly small as he crammed himself as unobtrusively into the corner as he could.  John stepped forward and froze as Rodney full on flinched at the movement, his entire body shaking in terror as he stared up at John with wide, fear blown eyes.

John didn’t understand it.  Any of it.  He hadn’t known it was this bad.  How could he not have known it was this bad?  How could it be this bad?  It had only been five hours - he couldn’t have failed so badly in just five hours -  _ could he? _

He collapsed onto Rodney’s mattress, needing to sit down.  John ran his hands through his hair and the way that Rodney didn’t comment on how his hair was bad enough without raking his mitts through it was just another nail in the coffin.

“What - Jesus, McKay  - I - we - it was  _ five hours _ .”  It sounded like a mantra as John pleaded with Rodney to explain this to him, to help him understand just how badly he had f- -

“Do you remember the sanctuary?”

-ucked up.   _ Oh, fuck.   _

Rodney’s voice sounded painful, hoarse and rough with disuse and John knew there and then that it had been a lot longer than five hours.  Suddenly his six months with the Ancient wannabes seemed like a paradise vacation.   _ God, he hoped it wasn’t that long for Rodney. _

“I don’t know for sure,”  Rodney answered the unasked question, his neck tilted back until the top of his head was resting against the wall, until he was speaking his words to the air.  “I tried to mark the meals they sent in on the walls to use as a tally but then they turned all the lights off and there didn’t seem any point in keeping track of what I couldn’t see.”

Rodney shrugged.  

“They told me it had been ten months.  When they hauled me out of that place and strapped me down, when they shaved off my beard and cut my hair and pushed me in that room you found me in.  He said it had been ten months but I don’t know if that’s true.  Maybe the scanner could tell me,” he mused.  “I could probably recalibrate it to measure the cellular degradation in my body since my last scan - but, honestly, I’m not sure I want to know.  I mean, what if it was longer?  What if,” Rodney laughed then, a broken, jagged horrible laugh, “what if I’m forty?  God, it would be just typical of me to miss that milestone.  Sometimes I think it would be worse if it was  _ less _ , y’know?”  He moved his head to look at John, his eyes boring into John, making it clear how vitally important this thought was.  “Because, what if it was only a week?  Two weeks, even?  A  _ month _ ?”  Rodney looked lost.  “I thought I would have been strong enough to last that long.  What if I wasn’t?  Oh God, John.  What if I wasn’t?”

John felt his heart stutter, Rodney’s deepest, darkest fear so close to his own thoughts these past few days.  He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do.  

“God, Rodney.”  His voice sounded as broken as Rodney’s own as he spoke the completely unhelpful words. “I - - “  Rodney cringed back into the corner, trying to make himself even smaller as John made a move to reach for him.  He swallowed the lump in his throat as he held up his hands, settling back on the mattress until Rodney relaxed.

“Let me get Carson, Heightmeyer, someone.  Jesus, Rodney, we didn’t know.  We - we came as soon as we could and - - I need to get someone.  You need to talk, you need to eat, you need to sleep, I need - - ”  John stood abruptly, meaning to leave, meaning to march into the infirmary and drag Carson out here and demand to know why he didn’t tell him it was this bad and - -

“Stay?”  Rodney asked, quietly.  

“You want me to stay?”

Rodney nodded, his head now buried between his knees, his arms wrapped around them.  “I was alone.  There.  It was too quiet.  But Atlantis is too loud.  I can’t - - but you’re, it’s, I can manage with you here.  Just let me get used to it before...you can bring Carson later but just...please just stay.”

John sat back down on the mattress.  Every inch of him wanted to sit down next to Rodney, to hold him, to promise him that he wouldn’t ever let it happen again, to apologise, to - - Rodney wasn’t ready for that.  God, ten months.  John didn’t know when he would be ready.  All he knew was that he would be there for every second of it.

Every damn second.


End file.
